Brunswick High School’s Dual Enrollment English 101 course was given an assignment to write a persuasive essay about a topic of their choosing. The Garnet & Gold Gazette staff chose their top 10 editorials to publish on our site. Staff used elements of news such as proximity, reader impact, human interest, and prominence within our community to publish relevant and enticing information on our site.
The essays chosen did an amazing job informing readers on the content and creating persuasive arguments on the chosen topics.
“Collaboration Chaos, Try Issueless Individuality Instead”
Group projects, every time there’s one announced in class, groans and collective remarks of dissatisfaction fill the room. We all know how unfair and useless they are, and frankly having optional groups would be much more beneficial than any perks a mandatory group project would provide.
Everyone knows that in every group project, there is always at least one person who does a noticeably lesser amount of work than the other member(s) of the group. This uneven distribution of work makes the entire collaborative process pointless because it forces the work onto the other member(s) to ensure that they have a grade that reflects a fully finished project. This grade is usually applied to all the members of the group, regardless of contribution to the project. This is an unfair reflection of each individual member’s input, especially when the members who aren’t contributing can leech a grade off the other group member(s). Benefiting off of others’ time, work, effort, and grades is a scummy thing to do that, in my eyes, is considered cheating. Yes, not all group projects have people slacking or cheating. However, it’s so common to experience doing an entire project on your own or with minimal help, that many people, including myself, often dread doing group projects and find it to be an unpleasant and draining experience. After having done group projects and having unfair working conditions, many have decided it is simply much easier to work in solitude. When working alone, there’s no need to stress over whether or not the counterpart(s) will contribute or complete their assigned task(s). Individual work allows for creative liberties and a better overall final product.
Most group assignments have no valid reasoning for being group based, especially when you consider that the work can be, and usually is, done individually. I have done entire research projects with visual presentations entirely by myself simply because I didn’t want to risk trusting my group members who had already proven that they wouldn’t contribute to the project. If I had simply been doing it alone from the start, I wouldn’t have wasted time micromanaging my group mates. The main reason behind projects is to test the individual understanding of a concept so it can be determined if the topic needs to be reviewed or if there can be a continuation to build onto the next learning segment. If the project is meant to be a group effort and not everyone understands, but the final result of the project makes it appear as though everyone does comprehend the topic, then clearly not everyone’s individual understanding was evaluated, rendering the collaborative aspect inappropriate. If the project would normally take longer if done individually, but was made into a group activity due to time or complexity, it should at the very least, be an option to work alone or in groups that have been chosen by the members.
While group projects may serve to mimic future workplace environments, encourage collaboration between peers, and open the individuals to other ideas. The uneven distribution, unfair grading, and unnecessary nature of a large majority of group projects, overshadows those few beneficial aspects of working in groups. These negative experiences that I, and many others have been a part of has led to wishes, hopes, and sometimes even pleads to simply have the option to work alone. When working alone, there’s significantly less to stress about, managed expectations and less concerns regarding how the final product turns out.